Google Music Isn’t an iTunes Killer, and It’s Not Supposed to Be

We can’t call it a news conference, because almost all of the news had been previouslyreported. But, for the record: Google Music finally opened up today, offering both a locker service and a store, along with a limited ability to share songs, for free, with Google+ users.

Jonathan Alcorn/Bloomberg

If you’d like to, you can compare Google’s store and locker to Apple’s long-established iTunes store and just-launched iTunes Match locker. For instance, Google’s locker is free and lets you store 20,000 songs. Apple’s locker costs $25 a year and lets you store 25,000 songs. Warner Music Group songs aren’t available at Google’s store but are at Apple’s. Etc.

[UPDATE: Because at least one of you asked - Google's service doesn't offer the "Match" feature that Apple does, which means that users will have to upload every song they want to access from Google's locker. For a user with a decent-sized library and a conventional residential broadband connection, that process could take a very long time, perhaps several days.]

But that’s sort of missing the point, because few people will make that comparison in the real world.

Instead, real people will make a simple non-decision: If they use an Android phone, they can’t use Apple’s store or locker. So now they can use Google’s. And while it will be theoretically possible for iPhone users to use Google’s store and locker, it will involve some kludgy sidesteps that won’t appeal to mainstream users.